spent big comp Gold Bucks on strippers at mob-tied club. [New York Daily News photo] \nATLANTA - Investigative records and federal sources say the two top guns on the New York Knicks, Patrick Ewing and Charles Oakley, received thousands of dollars worth of strippers' services and liquor, according to the New York Daily News. But neither Knick nor any other pro athlete said to have benefited from such favors are accused of wrongdoing.
The paper says those records and sources say other professional athletes who benefited from such Gold Club largesse include former NBA star Dennis Rodman and professional wrestlers Randy (Macho Man) Savage, Diamond Dallas Page Lou Sabh, Scott Steiner, and Saturn.
The Daily News says the Gold Club gave the athletes phony money known as Gold Bucks which it usually sold to patrons to slip into the strippers' G-strings or to rent one of its nineteen Gold Rooms for private nude lap dances.
Gold Club records seized by the feds and reviewed by the Daily News show five nights in April 1998 when Gold Club owner Steven Kaplan approved complimentary Gold Bucks for Ewing "and friends," for a $2,233 bill which included a single-night tab of $991.
Oakley was greased for $1,313 and $665 on two nights the previous June, according to the records cited by the paper, after the Knicks lost a hard series with the Miami Heat. Oakley left the Knicks as a free agent in June 1998. Neither Oakley nor Ewing or their agents have commented so far.
Rodman, likewise, was found to be a prodigious Gold Club indulger, according to those records and the Daily News. He forked over $411, $516, $786, $895, $926, and $946 in Gold Bucks during visits between 1995 and 1998. His agent, Steven Chasman, tells the paper Rodman spends heavily for entertainment but has no memory of the Gold Club visits.
Kaplan was indicted along with several others in November in a federal probe looking into whether and how deeply the strip club was tied to the Gambino crime family once run by now-imprisoned John (The Dapper Don) Gotti.
The 97-page indictment also alleges Kaplan had provided strippers on numerous occasions to perform oral sex on unnamed basketball players in the Gold Rooms, as well as providing prostitutes to perform lesbian sex while pro athletes watched - including a wild lesbian sex show for several unidentified Knicks in South Carolina, where the team was preparing for a playoff series in 1997. No players were named outright and none faces any charges of wrongdoing.
A spokesman for the National Basketball Association, Chris Brienza, tells the Daily News the league's rules do not ban players from free food and liquor from restaurants and bars, but the league does prohibit "materially detrimental or materially prejudicial" behavior.
The Daily News says the FBI and the IRS found records of all Gold Club customers who got free booze and Gold Bucks from Kaplan. And Brienza admitted players receiving favors from someone alleged to have organized crime connections would be of concern, with the NBA keeping a close eye on the situation.
